


oh what is love but a fragile little dream-catcher?

by idlewheel



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, hi hello hey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 02:44:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlewheel/pseuds/idlewheel
Summary: Amy Santiago waits outside the venue, white dress fluttering around her ankles as if it was dancing in the wind. She's dressed to get married, except she isn't really. Her fiance and her family, all eighty-three of them, are waiting for her inside. But here she is, waiting for Jake in the hot, waiting for everything that she's planned oh-so-perfectly to come to a screeching halt.And for once, she's glad that she won't be around to fix it.





	oh what is love but a fragile little dream-catcher?

Amy Santiago waits outside the venue, white dress fluttering around her ankles as if it was dancing in the wind. She's dressed to get married, except she isn't really. Her fiance and her family, all eighty-three of them, are waiting for her inside. But here she is, waiting for Jake in the hot, waiting for everything that she's planned oh-so-perfectly to come to a screeching halt. 

And for once, she's glad that she won't be around to fix it.

The sun drifts among the clouds, looking like a yellowing balloon, a pumpkin filled with helium. It taunts her as she crosses her fingers behind her back to and fro. When she was younger, this was the one thing she did when she wanted something to go her way. Quite honestly, it was more of a nervous reassurance than anything else. By now, she's long forgotten what finger was on top of the other and she's also long forgotten if it's ever even worked but with every fiber and cell of her being, she pleads that it does.

She looks behind her at the venue, almost hoping someone slips out and catches her making what is probably not a very rational decision. Quite frankly, it was not an Amy-made decision; she's never dreamed she'd ever decide something so sudden. But, for the first time in her life, Amy has shut down the rational part of her brain and has let her heart lead.

She closes her eyes as she looks back out into the street, remembering the phone call and the pleading note in her voice. How her whole body almost drifted out of the room as she whispered that simple phrase, "please". He didn't answer back and she didn't really expect Jake to do so. 

But truly, how did she expect him to do more than to hang up when she said that. How? When Jake was the one who pleaded her not to marry Teddy. How? When he all but begged her to leave and run away with him. But, by that time, everything was planned and she knew that everything was supposed to go this way. 

The rational part of her brain whispered to her late at night when she replayed his face like a movie behind her eyelids. And so she shut it out of her mind, extinguishing the thoughts like a candle's flame, setting everything to a star free night inside her mind.

Except, she was not planning for her heart to weigh this heavy and for the final sight of her in her wedding dress to make her feel like she was drowning. Nor to feel this dark and heavy, like she was drifting into the deep ocean in the middle of the night. No life raft among the waves, just the dangerous sharks, and seaweed, with nothing solid for her to hold on to.

When she told him about the proposal, she wasn't expecting him to be so angry about it. Or for him to show up to her apartment in the middle of the night. It had been a few months since he'd returned from being undercover and the whispered confession outside the precinct had been reduced to a simple memory she sometimes thought about; as if pressing down on a bruise.

But what did he expect her to do? What did he want her to do when Teddy was there? And when he was everything that she was looking for? When he crossed off every single one of her boxes; when he was compassionate and loving. By the time he had gotten down on one knee six months prior, she had no other thought but to say yes. This was like putting a period at the end of a sentence, it was naturally what proceeded it. But, she didn't understand why it took her three months to tell the squad. Or why it took for Rosa to find her wedding binder hidden in her car for her to do so.

For all she knew, Jake was over her. And she was over him or at least that's what she told herself each time her eyes remained a little too long on him or when her heart almost burst with confetti in her chest. But, here he was at three am, knocking on her door, not very over her. Here he was staring at her with dark and bleary eyes, like two pools of darkened water. 

As he spoke quietly, she couldn't help but look within those pools, feeling the water wading up to her thighs. In the quiet dark, she shivered under his fierce gaze and when he grabbed her hand, she nearly jumped at the electricity within his touch. But how could she not when she had all but bathed in his eyes.

"Please," he said once and all at once, she was lost for words. All words tucked between her two lungs or perhaps swallowed deep inside where they bumbled like bees that yearned to get out. He left after she had shaken her head slightly, her throat and hands empty, with no words to hold or say. No thoughts within her mind as the rational part of her brain was stunned to a flickering silence and her heart yammered like a drum in her chest.

The next three months were especially hard. Every time someone brought up her wedding in the precinct, she had the urge to cover Jake's ears with her palms. She didn't know where this urge to protect him came from or why she cringed and hid her engagement ring at work. It's not like he didn't know about it, but ever since that night at her apartment, where he'd shocked her like an electrical wire, he'd been distant. He was standing at the edge of the room at times, like a gazing star upon the light of the moon or when they worked cases together, he'd shut into himself like a rolly-polly.

However, within time, things slowly began to melt between them; the iceberg of dysfunction that barrelled the office turning into water. His smiles came more and the teasing tone between them continued but the muddy water between them remained. 

She couldn't help but remembered the dark night in his eyes and he managed to make her heart stutter like a drum beat.

But, she saw the muddy river of water between them, remaining like a man-constructed border dividing two countries. And as the wedding drew closer and as she began to realize that this future with Teddy was as infinite as the sea, she began to see the cracks within it. Like the Earth splintering underneath her feet, everything began to separate and disengage within it. Nothing made sense. Not her engagement, nothing at all. 

And as the wedding danced its way towards her, that was when she felt herself drawing closer to that muddy border, wading into the water, trying to put the land that was once close back together again. 

But, how was she to do that with the dragging of her relationship with Teddy? It was like an anchor in her plans. And it was like she was stuck in the river’s sand, dragging deeper down into the earth, sinking into the water as it took over her lungs. 

And then it was her wedding day, breathing with a sole lung, a surreal feeling. It was like she was in pause and everything was in fast forward. And there, as she looked in the mirror in that white dress, she realized that what she was doing was not only putting a period at the end of a sentence but a stake through her heart.

So, she made the call and she wrote that letter out for Teddy, scribbling her manic thoughts into the white sheet of paper. She knows he's going to read it soon enough and that this building behind her will go up in flames as she rides off and for once in her life, doesn't lie to herself. 

She opens her eyes again, looking at the empty street, hoping and praying he comes. Because if he doesn't, she doesn't know what she's going to do. 

And then, she sees him. The rumbling of his car crawling around the corner, his magnificent stead of iron. He stops at the edge of the street, two feet away. She slowly looks up from the street up to his eyes and she nearly floats to the yellowing sun. 

"Hi," he says and it's the only word she needs to hear before she's running into his car and kissing him. And this it, the period put at the end of a sentence. 

And within the drowning of love in his eyes, she realizes that she's done the rightest thing in her life. 

And yes, that includes saying the word rightest.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Susanne Sundfor’s “Bedtime Story” which is the song that I listened to when writing this. I hope you enjoy, please let me know in the comments if you did!  
> [My Tumblr](https://idlewheelposts.tumblr.com/)


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